Numerical simulations predict that metal-poor gas accretion from the cosmic web fuels the formation of disk galaxies. This paper discusses how cosmic gas accretion controls star formation, and summarizes the physical properties expected for the cosmic gas accreted by galaxies. The paper also collects observational evidence for gas accretion

The different algorithms appropriate for point source photometry on data from the SPIRE instrument on-board the Herschel Space Observatory, within the Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE) are compared. Point source photometry of a large ensemble of standard calibration stars and dark sky observations is carried out using the 4 major

This work is based on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope spectra obtained with the High Resolution Spectrograph, which we use for determination of abundances and rotational velocities. The Li abundance was determined from the 7Li 670.8nm line, while a more extended set of lines was used for alpha-elements abundances. Spectral analysis was done with the

Over the past 18 months we have revisited the science requirements for a multi-object spectrograph (MOS) for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). These efforts span the full range of E-ELT science and include input from a broad cross-section of astronomers across the ESO partner countries. In this contribution we summarise the key cases

Using the spectroscopic New York University Value-Added Galaxy Catalogue and the photometric photo-z catalogues of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7, we have explored the satellite distribution around ˜1000 massive (M⋆ ≳ 2 × 1011 M⊙) visually classified elliptical galaxies down to a satellite mass ratio of 1:400 (i.e. 5 × 108 ≲ Msat ≲ 2 ×

It has been claimed in the recent literature that a non-trivial relation between the mass of the most-massive star, mmax, in a star cluster and its embedded star cluster mass (the mmax - Mecl relation) is falsified by observations of the most-massive stars and the Hα luminosity of young star clusters in the starburst dwarf galaxy NGC 4214. Here, it